4/I [1904, Geneva].

152.
1936

YU. O. MARTOV TO F. V. LENGNIK.
4/I [1904. Geneva].

Most Esteemed Comrade!

To comrade Gans, as well as to you personally, I mentioned 5,000-6,000 rubles as the presumed minimum of what can be obtained annually for the Party from those two monetary sources to which the members of the editorial board have access¹.

But at the very same time, I reported both to you and to comrade Gans that, in my view, the use of these monetary sources is closely bound up with the degree of confidence which the state of affairs of our Party will inspire in their proprietors. Lenin himself became convinced of this when he approached them after the Congress². Immediately after my conversation with comrade Gans, I turned to the proper persons and obtained those 1,000 rubles which were transmitted by me to you. I shall turn to them now as well, but you understand perfectly well that the duty of propriety toward the owners of the money requires of me that I inform them of the state of affairs in our Party—everything I know myself and everything that can be communicated to them in consideration of conspiratorial security. Unfortunately, neither I nor anyone from the editorial board will be able to communicate to them any data whatsoever regarding the state of the Party and the work of the C.C., whose treasury they are being invited to assist, since the C.C. does not inform the editorial board of either the one or the other, and—as you well know—hinders it from independently gathering information about this (the refusal of Sharko, sanctioned by you, to transmit to the editorial board the addresses of the committees³). Reminding you that the editorial board has at its disposal no apparatus whatsoever for gathering money and that the conditions indicated above make it very difficult for it to conduct propaganda among its acquaintances for more active support of the Central Treasury at a time when the agents of the C.C. and persons patronized by it speak at meetings threatening phrases about the illegality of the present composition of the editorial board* (which, moreover, is spoken of also in the letter of C.C. member Lenin, which is being circulated in the colony with a provocative recommendation: "a leaflet of the Central Committee"⁴)—I therefore promise the Central Committee on behalf of the editorial board to do what lies within our power to assist the Central Treasury, while not answering, however, for the success of our efforts.

On behalf of the editorial board, L. Martov⁵.

¹ It has not been clarified what precisely those two monetary sources are. It is highly probable that one of them was A. M. Kalmykova (see the correspondence between her and Lenin immediately after the Second Congress of the Party, "Lenin Miscellany" VI, documents 18 and 19, pp. 200-208, documents 24, pp. 250-251).

² The fact of Lenin's direct approach to the mentioned monetary sources, with the exception of the correspondence with A. M. Kalmykova indicated in note 1, has not been clarified.

³ See above documents 123, 124, 125, pp. 32-34.

⁴ The reference is to Lenin's letter "Why I Left the Editorial Board of Iskra." Martov, in saying that "the illegality of the present composition of the editorial board" is "spoken of also in the letter of C.C. member Lenin," has in mind the following passages from Lenin's letter: "...Plekhanov decided to co-opt the old editorial board. I foresaw that the opposition would not be satisfied with this and considered it impossible to reverse the decision of the Party Congress to please a circle" (italics by the author. Ed.) (Collected Works, vol. IV, p. 322)... "the difference consists in the fact that, in the opinion of the majority, one can and should conduct one's views in the party independently of revising the personal composition of the centers" (ibid., p. 323).

⁵ For the continuation of the correspondence, see below document 154.

* The passage beginning with the words "persons patronized by it" is underlined twice in pencil in the manuscript and heavily marked with a line in pencil on the side. This was apparently done not by the author but by the addressee of the letter. Ed.